Retail industry

When push comes to shove

Article Abstract:

It is common in the UK for women in the second stage of childbirth to be instructed by the midwife or doctor when they should push. Women are usually not permitted to respond to their natural bodily urges, which would probably not direct them to push in the same way as they are conventionally instructed. New research indicates that traditional 'directed pushing' could in fact have a negative impact on both the baby and the mother. It could cause abnormalities of the foetal heart rate, and may cause unnecessary tears to the mother's perineum.

Mummy, take care what you say to the doctor

Article Abstract:

Professor Roy Meadow of St James's University Leeds, England conducted a survey of 200 medical staff which showed that children of unlikeable parents received poorer health care. Doctors realised that they have prejudices. They tend to dislike the presence of more than one adult, euphemisms and people more clever or wealthy than themselves. Asians were a problem because of a lack of interpreters. Further training in communication skills is needed. Mothers should not be told they are imagining things.

It's all too much. I'm off to the pub

Article Abstract:

It is gradually becoming recognized in the UK that postnatal depression can affect men as well as women. In both cases, the changed circumstances created by a new baby can bring depression. However, depression in new fathers is often ignored or regarded negatively as a sign of the father being jealous of the attention the baby receives. Men who do suffer depression after the birth of their child are unlikely to be willing to seek help.